Mr. Fortune's Maggot (New York Review Classics)

About this book

After a decade in one South Seas mission a London bank-clerk-turned-minister sets his heart on serving a remote volcanic island. Fanua contains neither cannibals nor Christians but its citizens his superior warns are like childrenimmoral children. Still Mr. Timothy Fortune lights out for Fanua. Yet after three years he has made only one convert and his devotion to the boy may prove more sensual than sacred. Mr. Fortunes Maggot Sylvia Townsend Warners second novel is lyrical droll and deeply affecting and her missionary captivated his creator as much as he did her readers. Long after the books publication Warner began the novella The Salutation. Now adrift and starving on the Brazilian pampas Mr. Fortune is rescued by an elderly widow who delights in having an Englishman about the house. Her heir however may beg to differ. Brilliant and subversive Mr. Fortunes Maggot and its sequel are now available for the first time ever in one volume. They show Sylvia Townsend Warner at the height of her powers.